Oday 222 Tension Bar

[Red Ryder]

My Oday 222 was built in 1984 prior to the addition of tension bars to help support the deck and the mast. Does anyone know where I might purchase or have a tension bar fabricated? I have already checked with D&R marine and that is not an option. I have included pictures compliments of Trinkka.

 

[MGoBoat]

They don't seem to be anything too complicated to manufacture (I have them on my 192). With very accurate dimensions and a list of materials, a good machine/welding shop could make them. Be sure to include the pictures of the finished product. Understanding the use of the part will help the person building it do a better job.
​

 

[olsalt]

A hardware store will have 3/4 inch galvanized conduit for a few bucks. Or you could offer any musician a couple dollars for a mic stand, they are chrome and thicker steel. Drill some holes & bolt it in.

 

[Flyboy69]

I am getting a bit of deck mush on my Oday 23. Inside of my boat looks exactly like these pics, less the tension bar. Its starting to bulge in and you can also see this from topside. I was considering cutting the first layer of glass out and the ply underneath it, then, replacing the plywood, reglassing under the mast.
Would a Tension bar be a better idea??? I know it would be a lot easier than glassing

 

[Joe11688]

The pipe on mine is 1" stainless steel which is very similar to what is used for stern rails and bow pulpits. One end is flattened out with two holes for the bolts that attach to the galley cabinet post. The other end has a flat piece of stainless steel welded to it with two holes which fits on the two outside bolts that come through the cabin top for the Tabernacle. The size of this flat metal flange and the hole spacing depends on the make of the spars. My spars were made by Z-Diffusion, Bristol RI which is out of business. Kenyon and Dwyer, also made spars for these boats with different make tabernacles than what came with my Z-190 mast.
My mast originally came with a cheap cast aluminum tabernacle that was manufactured in France along with all the other spar extrusions that came with these masts. I later had a new Z-190 mast made up for my boat with a Kenyon stainless steel tabernacle which has wider bolt spacing. Consequently, I had to use two of the original bolts from my old tabernacle to attach my tension bar. This is why you see six bolts coming through the cabin top in the pics that I gave Red.

Generally, a marine metal fabricator will have this pipe in his scrap pile and it will be cheaper than buying it in an 8' length at "Worst Marine." The same with the 1/8" thick flange. It's just a matter of welding the flange on the pipe at the proper angle. The other end of the pipe is put into a hydraulic press and flattened out to fit the side of the wood galley cabinet post.
If you can get the materials up and figure out the angle and hole spacing Red, a welding job of this nature might be able to be done at a vocational school in your area. If not, a local metal fabricator could weld it. Some of them get $80 an hour.
Here is a sketch of my tension bar. The flange angle shown should be accurate for a 1986 O'Day 222 to the best of my knowledge. I don't imagine that they made any changes to the cabin of these boats from 1984 to 1986, but I could be wrong. Perhaps the flat plate could be designed with a variable pitch on a bolt. :dance:

 

[Red Ryder]

Thanks for all your suggestions...

 

[Merlin Clark]

I am getting a bit of deck mush on my Oday 23. Inside of my boat looks exactly like these pics, less the tension bar. Its starting to bulge in and you can also see this from topside. I was considering cutting the first layer of glass out and the ply underneath it, then, replacing the plywood, reglassing under the mast.
Would a Tension bar be a better idea??? I know it would be a lot easier than glassing

I'm not an Oday sailor but have seen coring problems at the area under the mast on a lot of boats.
You should fix the core problem even if you add the post. I have to do this on mine next time I step the mast, scheduled for after it cools off down here. I'll use my roto tool to cut an oblong around where my tabernacle is and replace the bad stuff with epoxy, strand and filler. Then re-install the piece of deck I cut out. I'll have to patch in my new paint jobbut that's what I get for not doing this before I painted.

 

[OdayDave]

I'm not an Oday sailor but have seen coring problems at the area under the mast on a lot of boats.
You should fix the core problem even if you add the post. I have to do this on mine next time I step the mast, scheduled for after it cools off down here. I'll use my roto tool to cut an oblong around where my tabernacle is and replace the bad stuff with epoxy, strand and filler. Then re-install the piece of deck I cut out. I'll have to patch in my new paint jobbut that's what I get for not doing this before I painted.

Red -

I agree on the coring issue and on the need for a tension bar. First on the coring problem. When I upgraded to an O'Day 25 from my 222, I found some water intrusion under the mast on the 25. I cut away the deck and cleaned out all the soft wood (about 20 inches square) and then filled the cavity with fiberglass and touched up with evercoat. It is stronger than new now and I don't have to worry about whether the mast will come down unexpectedly. It's a messy fix, but it is doable without incurring huge expenses if you want to do it yourself.

Next on the tension bar, a couple of years ago I noticed the absence of the tension bar on my (now sold) O'Day 222. So I followed Joe's plan and replaced it. It was an easy fix (my brother-in-law is a welder) and I didn't think anything of it until I launched last year. I noticed my forestay was about 1/4 inch short. That's when I realized that the deck had been flexing a bit without the bar. Again, I consider it a safety issue although with a dry core, I doubt there was much risk of losing the rig because of flexing.

Good luck,

Dave
O'Day 25

 

[Barnacle Bill]

They are called compression posts, not tension bars.

 

[Joe11688]

They are called compression posts, not tension bars.

I guess that you could call it a compression post Bill if it comes straight up from the sole plate in the cabin to the cabin ceiling under the mast tabernacle. Rudy had asked me several years ago in his store if I could get some measurements of this brace so that he could have some made up. He referred to the brace back then as a tension bar. Perhaps it's because this bar is attached to a galley post at an angle and lends support to the mast that way. I asked him last year why he never had any of these braces made up and he said that it was too costly so he abandoned the idea.
I gave him a 2" piece of my Z-190 mast a few weeks ago so that he can get some mast plugs made up. I'm hoping that he follows through on this because I need one for my mast. The mast plug that Rig-Rite installed for my stainless steel hinged Tabernacle back in the 1990s is made of stainless steel and it caused the lower part of my mast to corrode. Hopefully Rudy is having these mast plugs made out of Aluminum.
Joe

 

[Barnacle Bill]

I looked at your photos again and the original compression post is made of wood, but obviously there is a problem if you feel you need to add additional support. To me you are adding another compression post which extends off of the original compression post. If you wish to call it a tension bar, then so be it. Not messing with semantics.

 

[Joe11688]

I looked at your photos again and the original compression post is made of wood, but obviously there is a problem if you feel you need to add additional support. To me you are adding another compression post which extends off of the original compression post. If you wish to call it a tension bar, then so be it. Not messing with semantics.

"You say tomatoes and I say Toomahtoes" "You say potatoes and I say potahtoes." Do you remember that song Bill?

I don't know Bill. I just call it what Rudy called it. He asked me to make a sketch of the bar and take some pics of it back then. I put them on a CDRW and brought them down to his shop and put them into his PC. If I were to email them to him, he would never have found them because he gets emails into the hundreds and thousands.

Now that I think of it, I think that the reason why he never had these bars made up was because of the fact that the O'Day factories were using three or four different spar manufacturers back then and the flanges would have had to have been made up for that specific mast tabernacle that the spar manufacturers were using back then. For instance, the O'Day 222s in my area were being furnished with internal halyard Z-Difusion Z-190 masts that were made in Bristol RI and the extrusions were cheap cast Aluminum, made in France. Some of the O'Day 222s built on the West coast were using external halyard Dwyer mfg spars with stainless steel hinged tabernacle plates. He would have had to figure out flange size and bolt spacings and carry two or three different bars in stock to fit the bolts on those tabernacles. It wouldn't be worth the money or the aggravation. Of course there are ways of getting around this problem with one flange size. I was able to do it on my boat and I'm sure that anyone else could also get around it.

 

[Red Ryder]

Well, Thursday I finally picked up my tension bar for my 1984 O'Day 222. It was fabricated by a local welding shop. I tried a number of marine fabricators on line and by phone, but I guess my job was not profitable for them to pursue. The remarkable thing is we used the diagram and directions given to me so kindly by Joe, the old fuzzy faced Captain of the "Trinkka". The only exception to his plan was the size of the seat that fit under the fiberglass under the mast tabernacle. His 1986 O'Day 222 has a mast that was made by a different manufacture. Joe's mast tabernacle has two screws were as my 1984 has four. As a result my plate was 4" by 6". I want to thank everyone who gave me advice, especially Joe, The old fuzzy faced Captain of the "Trinkka"

 

[Joe11688]

Hi Red!
I'm happy that I was able to be of some help to you on this.
Regards,
Joe